There's a ton of Rense links, and all the major news outlets are harping on it. I would tend to believe that this is some elite-created crisis (again!) to distract us from something else they'd rather we not talk about. But what is it? Banks? Torture? Is this to keep us from congregating and fomenting "plans"?

Clearly, something has just happened that has not come widely to light, or something is going to happen, in the next day or two(?)

Mexican authorities have taken drastic measures to contain a new strain of the swine flu virus that has killed 81 and prompted fears of a global pandemic.

People are being urged to stay at home and maintain strict personal hygiene. Many schools, public buildings, bars and restaurants have been closed.

Non-fatal cases have been confirmed in the US and are likely in New Zealand.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that at least some of the cases are a new strain of the virus.

H1N1 is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans, but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

The respiratory virus - which infects pigs but only sporadically humans - is spread mainly through coughs and sneezes.

The WHO has warned the virus has the potential to become a pandemic, and has urged all governments to step up surveillance.

Several countries in Asia and Latin America have begun screening airport passengers for symptoms.

Suspected outbreaks

Although all of the deaths so far have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading in the United States and suspected cases have been detected elsewhere:

* Eleven confirmed infections in the US
* In addition, eight suspected cases are being investigated at a New York City high school where about 200 students fell mildly ill with flu-like symptoms
* Ten New Zealand students are among a group which travelled to Mexico have tested positive for influenza A - making it "likely", though not definite, that they are infected with swine flu, said Health Minister Tony Ryall
* In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico may be carrying the virus
* Spain's health ministry says three people who returned from a trip from Mexico with flu symptoms are in isolation and being tested
* In Israel, medics are testing a 26-year-old man who has been taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from a trip to Mexico
* But a UK hospital conducting tests for swine flu on a British Airways cabin crew member said the tests proved negative.

Mexico shutdown

The Mexican government, which has faced criticism for what some see as a slow reaction to this outbreak, is now taking an increasingly hard line to try to contain the virus, says the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City.

Public buildings have been closed and hundreds of public events suspended.

Schools in and around Mexico City have been closed until 6 May, and some 70% of bars and restaurants in the capital have been temporarily closed.

People are being strongly urged to avoid shaking hands, and the US embassy has advised visitors to the country to keep at least six feet (1.8m) from other people.

Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said a total of 1,324 people had been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April and were being tested for the virus.

"In that same period, 81 deaths were recorded probably linked to the virus but only in 20 cases we have the laboratory tests to confirm it," he said.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon has announced emergency measures to deal with the situation.

They include powers to isolate individuals suspected of having the virus without fear of legal repercussions.

In the US, seven people in California, two people in Texas, and two people in Kansas have been infected with the new strain.

In New York, city health commissioner Dr Thomas Frieden said preliminary tests conducted on the ailing students showed they were possible cases of swine flu.

Further tests will clarify if it was the same strain that was detected in the other three states.

Following a meeting of its emergency committee on Saturday, the WHO said the virus had the potential to become a pandemic but it was too early to say whether that would happen.

WHO Director General Margaret Chan said recent events constituted "a public health emergency of international concern" and that countries needed to co-operate in heightening surveillance.

The WHO is advising all countries to be vigilant for seasonally unusual flu or pneumonia-like symptoms among their populations - particularly among young healthy adults, a characteristic of past pandemics.

Officials said most of those killed so far in Mexico were young adults - rather than more vulnerable children and the elderly.
There is currently no vaccine for the new strain but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.

It is unclear how effective currently available flu vaccines would be at offering protection against the new strain, as it is genetically distinct from other flu strains.

Funny that the "tests" show that the students are "likely to have contracted the virus" and yet remain quite healthy.
Thank goodness these were such mild cases.

Students Fall Ill in New York, and Swine Flu Is Likely Cause

Quote:

Tests show that eight students at a Queens high school are likely to have contracted the human swine flu virus that has struck Mexico and a small number of other people in the United States, health officials in New York City said yesterday.
The students were among about 100 at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows who became sick in the last few days, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City’s health commissioner.
“All the cases were mild, no child was hospitalized, no child was seriously ill,” Dr. Frieden said.
Health officials reached their preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them to eliminate other strains of flu. Officials were also suspicious since some St. Francis students recently had been to Mexico, where the outbreak is believed to have started.....

.... Because of fears of the H5N1 avian flu, both New York City and the United States have had detailed pandemic emergency plans in place since 2005, as well as stockpiles of emergency supplies and flu drugs (the plan can be read at www.pandemicflu.gov).

Dr. Frieden said that for such an emergency, the city had extra hospital ventilators, huge reserves of masks and gloves and “millions of doses of Tamiflu,” an antiflu drug that thus far appears to work against the new swine strain.

The eight Queens students were positive for an A-strain flu virus but negative for all previously known A-strains. That result, called “A-untypeable,” led officials to suspect it was the new swine flu.

Dr. Frieden said the city was also testing samples from students from a day care center in the Bronx. Health officials would not identify it.

Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the C.D.C., said the agency would send a team to New York, as it has to California, Texas and Mexico, if requested.

New York has one of the most sophisticated health departments in the world, but the C.D.C. can assist by releasing supplies from the National Strategic Stockpile. Tamiflu, masks, gloves, purifying gel, ventilators and other goods useful in a flu crisis are kept in warehouses around the country and can be moved out in a matter of hours, Mr. Skinner said.

In Texas, Byron Steele High School was closed and all its extracurricular activities were canceled “to reduce the risk to students, staff and the community,” said Dr. Sandra Guerra, a regional director for the state health department. She urged students not to hang out together anyway as “that would defeat the purpose.”
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas asked the C.D.C. to send 37,430 doses of Tamiflu.

According to one expert involved in telephone discussions about flu preparedness on Saturday, there was debate among officials about whether to move some of the stockpile closer to Texas and California. Presumably, that will be made moot by indications that a mild form of the flu may have already spread elsewhere in the nation.

The C.D.C. did not raise the alert level in the United States, which is officially at zero because there have been no human cases of H5N1 avian flu here as there have been in Asia and Egypt.

C.D.C. scientists are working on a “seed strain” for a vaccine matched to the new swine flu, but warned that it would take months before enough doses for all Americans are ready.

They are also creating test kits for 140 American labs and dozens of international ones to allow them to test for the new flu.

In each year’s flu season, most deaths are in infants and the aged, but none of the first ones in Mexico were in people over 60 or under 3 years old, a W.H.O. spokeswoman said. When a new virus emerges, deaths may occur in healthy adults who mount the strongest immune reactions. Their own defenses — inflammation and leaking fluid in lung cells — can essentially drown them from inside.

The federal pandemic plan includes putting emergency rooms and first-responders on alert, making sure they have seasonal flu shots and putting them first in line for any early batches of a swine flu vaccine.

The 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic came in waves — a summertime one was mild, then a severe one hit the following winter.

However, as experts note, in 1918 there was no Tamiflu, no antibiotics to fight pneumonia, and no powered ventilators.

PrisonPlanet is amping up the fear levels for this new "A-untypeable" strain as well, claiming that it is the beta test for a lab-created government sponsored biological agent to be used on the
populace.

This seems to have disturbing echoes of the sub contractors in the czech republic who identified that the vaccines they were given by Baxter were contaminated with bird flu. However what I would like to know is why was that story ignored on here by Fintan? this was a giant of a story and yet not one mention of it.

Last edited by virtuoso on Sun Apr 26, 2009 1:32 pm; edited 2 times in total

I stumbled upon this clip by accident on Digg the other day and I believe the poster was attempting to draw a link between the Mexico City outbreak and the "whistleblower" featured in the audio. Note, the subject apology. It's from the Genesis Communications' Power Hour and normally I would disregard it but I'm trying to be inclusive about any info I come across.

What do you guys think? I live near the Albany/Glens Falls area so it was alarming to hear that this stuff could have been happening right in my back yard, so to speak.

Also, I was unaware of this at first but apparently there is some sort of dispute between the show (or the poster?) and Alex Jones on this issue. The details are noted in the description of the video if you click-thru to the youtube page (look to the right and expand the description window). Just putting it out there for dissection.

Reporting from Washington -- Federal officials today declared a public health emergency involving human swine flu, warning Americans to prepare for widespread outbreaks now or in the future, yet urging them not to panic.

In a briefing at the White House, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Richard Besser, confirmed a 20th case of the flu, this one in Ohio. He said the government will likely find more cases -- and cases that are more severe than the relatively mild ones seen in the United States so far -- as it ramps up detection efforts...

I wonder what this detection process is... Does it involve picking cherries?

On February 5, 1976, an army recruit at Fort Dix said he felt tired and weak. He died the next day and four of his fellow soldiers were later hospitalized. Two weeks after his death, health officials announced that swine flu was the cause of death and that this strain of flu appeared to be closely related to the strain involved in the 1918 flu pandemic. Alarmed public-health officials decided that action must be taken to head off another major pandemic, and they urged President Gerald Ford that every person in the U.S. be vaccinated for the disease. The vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems, but about 24% of the population had been vaccinated by the time the program was canceled.

About 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, resulting in death from severe pulmonary complications for 25 people, were probably caused by an immunopathological reaction to the vaccine. Other influenza vaccines have not been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Seriously? PH Emergency? According to CDC hundred of thousands of people die from the flu every year. Not even sure I can believe it but that's just me.
This reminds me of "SARS"
I can't seem to find any influenza statistics for Mexico other than the recent dead who were apparently quite young.

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Other nations imposed travel bans or made plans to quarantine air travelers as confirmed cases also appeared in Mexico and Canada and suspect cases emerged elsewhere.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

“We’re in a period in which the picture is evolving,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization. “We need to know the extent to which it causes mild and serious infections.”

Without that knowledge — which is unlikely to emerge soon because only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case — his agency’s panel of experts was unwilling to raise the global pandemic alert level, even though it officially saw the outbreak as a public health emergency and opened its emergency response center.

As a news conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the emergency declaration “standard operating procedure,” and said she would rather call it a “declaration of emergency preparedness.”
“It’s like declaring one for a hurricane,” she said. “It means we can release funds and take other measures. The hurricane may not actually hit.”

The White House says that Barack Obama is "highly engaged" in monitoring the swine flu outbreak that has spread over the border from Mexico into the US – and well he might. For a while, the President's doctors feared that he may have come closer than almost anyone in the country to contracting the virus.

According to alarming reports from Mexico City, Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist who showed Mr Obama around the city's anthropology museum during his visit to Mexico earlier this month, died the next day from "flu-like symptoms".

Mr Solis met the President at a gala dinner which was held at the museum on 16 April, before Mr Obama travelled on to the Americas summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

Yesterday, the museum was shut, in common with most public attractions in Mexico City, and the nation's Health Minister confirmed that Mr Solis had died of pneumonia – but that it was not thought he had contracted swine flu.

In the US, the White House said that the President's doctors had given him an all-clear. Mr Obama showed no symptoms after the usual incubation period, his spokesman said.

Suspected cases.
Confirmed cases.
Cases which are suspected of being confirmed.
Cases which are confirmed of being suspected.

It's all a numbers game.
Numbers of dollar bills.

Dollar Bills for the Media.
Dollar Bills for the WHO.
Dollar Bills for Big Pharma.
Dollar Bills for the "Guvm'nt Did It, We're all DOOMED" brigade.

The numbers that really count are the incidence of the current problem
in the context of 4 Million Pneumonia deaths that take place every year.

In that context the current numbers are a sick joke.

The vast majority of these deaths are due to malnutrition. In the
developed world the few deaths are due to fever suppresssion.

People don't generally die from Flu.
They die from Pneumonia complications.

Avoiding the complications is simplicity itself.

Fever is Nature's way of killling off a viral infection
so that you never get to the stage of pneumonia.

Quote:

Fever Cures Swine Flu!

by Fintan Dunne, BreakForNews.com, 27th April, 2009

The epidemic is reaching crisis proportions. But this epidemic is one
of medical meddling tied to commercial gain. The leading cause of all
flu mortality is treatments which actually encourage avoidable acute
respiratory complications.

Only a small minority of people develop serious flu complications, such as
pneumonia -which is the actual cause of most Swine Flu deaths. The
mortality arises because a small percentage of influenza cases go badly
wrong. Instead of clearing up in weeks, they leave the patients possibly
dead in weeks. Why does this happen?

What's the first thing we do in cases of colds and flu? We medicate
with over-the-counter analgesics. The most popular analgesics, including
aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, suppress production of antibodies
and on average they deplete the immune response by a staggering 50
percent. Among other effects, aspirin uncouples oxidative phosphorylation;
inhibits short-chain fatty acid oxidation; lowers lymphocyte transformation
and lowers interferon production in response to viral infection.

One study found flu symptoms last 5 days in participants who do not take
aspirin or acetaminophen, compared with 9 days in people who do!

FABULOUS FEVER!

When we have infection, our bodies turn the temperature up. This
undermines replication of bacteria and viruses which grow well at normal
body temperatures, but not at the temperature of a fever. The immune
system itself is also more efficient at this higher temperature.

To defeat flu, the body also lowers the bioavailability of certain minerals
while switching to protein energy production to starve any bacteria of the
sugar they would simply use to reproduce. That reduces the risk of a
bacterial infection complications of a viral flu. Infections thrive on sugar.

So this is quite a sophisticated body-wide response. But doctors and the
public won't leave fever alone. Why on earth lower the body temperature
-when this is simply defeating the natural and effective response?

Perhaps we should ban thermometers, because doctors, nurses and
parents are far too fond of using them.

Here's an example of typical advice for a respiratory infection:

".If you can try not to bring your child's temperature all the way down to
98.6, because that may actually prolong the illness by delaying your
body's efforts to kill bacteria and viruses. Usually, you shouldn't give
anything for fever unless your child's temperature is 100.0 or higher..."

There go two contradictory positions. If the body is right to raise the
temperature, then the doctor is wrong to advise lowering it. This quibbling
over degrees of fever is missing the point entirely. Healing effectively is
the objective -not easing temporary discomfort.

Fevers make people feel uncomfortable. That's life. Maybe we could just
live with that --in the interests of speeding recovery for all and preventing
a significant minority deteriorating into pneumonia and some into death.

We should be working to facilitate the body, not thwart it. And the vital
time is early in the infection. The sooner we can help the fever knock out
the virus population, the shorter will be the duration of infection, and the
lesser its severity. This will restrict the rate of transmission -and thus
there will be less epidemic spread. It's a win, win situation.

We should focus less on chasing particular variants, and instead improve
general treatment thus reducing complications and deaths.

YOUR BODY IS
A FLU EXPERT

In general, let the body decide it's own level of fever. It knows what it is
doing. It has more biological data available to it than any doctor. And
vastly more experience. Before medicine, the body already knew how to
deal with influenza.

The advantages of a body temperature of up to even as high as 103F
outweigh the modest risk of febrile seizure. Fever increases interferon in
the blood; increases the white blood cells that kill cells infected with
viruses, and improves their capacity to destroy bacteria and infected cells.

The body also knows when to eat during fever and when not to eat. Don't
force food on an uninterested flu sufferer. It is also critical to avoid dairy
products and caffeine at the early stage, as both increase mucous
production. If caffeine is taken, let it be a little and preferably tea. Don't
overdo the advice to drink "plenty of fluids." Obviously, with serious
diarrhea or sweating you do need to take enough replacement water,
but otherwise drink what you feel you wish to drink. No more, no less.

Take care with sugar. Use of sugars and fast releasing starches upsets
the hormonal status quo and leads to poor immunity. This may play a
significant role in respiratory morbidity in the elderly --by enabling
bacterial infection of viral pneumonias and diminishing immune response.

Fever offers a more potent anti-viral effect than any of the anti-viral
drugs now in vogue. Fever is safe, natural and effective. Fever can
help most of us to beat an infection in 36 hours and be well into recovery
within a week.

According to two mainstream media journalists, one in Mexico City and the other in Jakarta, who spoke to WMR on background, they are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.

Our Mexico City source said a top scientist for the United Nations, who
has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest that the new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon. The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.

Our Jakarta source said WHO officials are afraid that the presence of gene segments from dreaded H5N1 bird flu in the A-H1N1 swine flu strain could mean that the new swine flu strain was engineered to “jump species.”

WMR has been informed that the CDC and U.S. Army dug up the body of
an Inuit woman who died in 1918 in Brevig Mission, Alaska from an
outbreak of Spanish flu.....

Large-scale swine producers in Mexico deny that their industry is the source of the deadly new influenza strain, saying the animals are all healthy, and that it is scientifically "not possible" for hogs to infect people with the illness. But lawmakers in the eastern state of Veracruz are now charging that large-scale hog and poultry operations are "breeding grounds" of infection that are making people sick and fueling the pandemic.

On Sunday, the state government of Veracruz confirmed swine influenza in a five-year-old girl in the village of La Gloria, located near a massive US-owned hog facility. The bodies of two other village children who died in February and March will be exhumed and tested for signs of the illness, local media reports said.

And in the western state of Guerrero, 500 pigs were just killed after becoming ill with swine flu.

The nation's hog industry says it is not to blame for any human illness. "We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs, because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible," said a statement issued by the National Organization of Pig Production and Producers and its president, Mario Humberto Quintanilla González.

The group said it had ordered a series of lab tests and sought technical support from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and others, "in order to demonstrate, once again, that pigs are not the cause of the flu that is affecting the country. It must remain clear that the flu problem is caused neither by the proximity to swine operations nor by the consumption of pork meat or pork products."

The statement went on to say, however, that pork producers, "will respect whatever scientific determination is made as to the actual causes that have provoked this health problem."

Meanwhile, one of Mexico's largest producers, Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods, issued its own statement saying there was no sign of swine flu at any of its operations in the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The company's huge facility near the town of La Gloria was first mentioned as a possible source of the new human-swine flu outbreak by Tom Philpott at www.grist.org.

According to El Universal newspaper, the company reported no signs of disease in any of its 907 workers - nor in its 60,000 breeding sows or 500,000 feeder pigs, all of whom were vaccinated against swine flu. "The press release stated that that the virus was found in people who were not near swine production facilities, and who did not have contact with pigs, and therefore, 'it has been concluded that the contagion has been between humans,'" El Universal reported.

But the industry statement that this disease was not transmitted from pigs to people contradicts virtually all Mexican government statements so far, including Mexico's Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, who said the virus, "mutated from pigs, and then at some point was transmitted to humans." Whether they were Mexican pigs or not remains a mystery, of course.

As Philpott pointed out in his post, Mexican newspapers have been reporting for weeks that residents living near Granjas Carroll's massive hog facility at La Gloria are falling ill with severe upper respiratory diseases. One five-year-old girl in the village just tested positive for swine flu - the bodies of two more children who died recently are being exhumed.

According to an April 5 article in La Jornada newspaper, "Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll discharges the fecal waste from its hog barns - as well as air pollution that has already caused an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town."

More than 400 people had already been treated for respiratory infections, and more than 60 percent of the town's 3,000 residents had reported getting sick, the paper said. State officials disputed that claim, and said the illnesses were caused by cold weather and dust in the air.

The problems began in early March, when many neighbors of the hog CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) became sick with colds and flu that quickly turned into lung infections, causing local health officials to impose a "sanitary cordon" around the area and begin a mass program of vaccination and home fumigation.

"According to state agents of the Mexican Social Security Institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement," La Jornada reported. "Even so, state and federal authorities paid no attention to the residents, until today."

The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that the Smithfield subsidiary turn over all documents and environmental certifications on its three massive waste lagoons, but so far, the company has only supplied information on one of them, news reports said today.

On Friday, the chairman of the state legislature's Committee on the Environment, Marco Antonio Núñez López, called on Veracruz's Secretary of Health to impose a "sanitary cordon" around all hog and poultry CAFOs in the area - as well as bus terminals and airports - to prevent the spread of influenza among the population.

He said the factory farms should be considered "breeding grounds" (focos rojos - which might also translate as "hot spots") of potential infection for the cities of Veracruz, Boca del Río, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Orizaba, Xalapa and Perote.

"I asked the Secretary to inform us about what was going on in La Gloria with Granjas Carroll, because avian flu is spreading from birds to pigs, and from there to humans, and that urgent measures are needed," Núñez López told reporters.

He was referring to another CAFO, this one containing poultry, called Granjas de Bachoco, located near the state capital of Xalapa. He said there was an epidemic of avian flu among the chickens being raised there, but that this was being kept quiet so as not to interfere with exports. Influenza-infected chickens raise the risk of cross-infection to pigs in the same area, scientists say.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Mexico, about halfway between Mexico City and Acapulco in the town of Cocula, Guerrero, health officials ordered the destruction of 500 pigs infected with swine flu, local newspapers reported. One hundred of the animals fell sick at the Rancho La Joya operation and were sacrificed last Wednesday. On Thursday, 400 more infected pigs were killed.

There is no proof that this illness emerged on a Mexican hog factory farm, or in Mexico, or even in hogs. But we do know that Mexican pigs with swine flu are being destroyed. And we know that Mexican lawmakers think that CAFOs are making people sick.

And now we know that a five-year-old girl in La Gloria has swine flu. I wonder if the CDC is going to go check on her, and see how she contracted that virus._________________Birth is the first example of " thinking outside the box"